The Light of Ləbbuna: Zera Yacob’s Theory of Rationality in the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob

This article reconstructs the central doctrine of the Ḥatäta Zär’a Yaʿǝqob by analyzing the faculty of ləbbuna , a term variously translated as ‘reason,’ ‘understanding,’ ‘conscience,’ or ‘heart.’ I first reconstruct the Ḥatäta’s core problem: perspective-relative justification in religious disagreement, against the seventeenth-century backdrop of interconfessional conflict in the Ethiopian highlands. I then offer a systematic account of ləbbuna as an anti-relativistic solution to this problem. I show how ləbbuna functions as a universal, divinely-endowed capacity for discerning the śərʿatä fəṭrät (the established order of creation), thereby providing an independent standard for judgement. I identify six defining features of ləbbuna : its independence from any haymanot or ‘creed’; its grounding in a metaphysical harmony between creation, the Creator and human minds; its divine origin; its ethical-epistemic unity; its immediacy and conditional infallibility; and its arduousness. I conclude by clarifying what is (and is not) at stake in describing Zär’a Yaʿǝqob as a rationalist.